Gaylord played in a tournament on Friday at Lake Ann. (Results will appear in Wednesday's paper.) Traverse City Central hosted the event and all eight Big North Conference teams participated, making it an important early-season competition.

"Right now, the main thing is improvement," Johnson said. "We want to get better every time out. And we want to match up as well as we can against the other teams in the conference."

The coach expects Traverse City Central, Traverse City West, Cheboygan and Petoskey to be in the top tier of teams in the conference, with Gaylord, Sault Ste. Marie, Cadillac and Alpena battling it out to earn a place among the top four.

Johnson's goals are to finish in the top five in every tournament the Blue Devils compete in, and to finish among the top four in the conference.

"Those goals are reachable," he said. "We're young, but the kids on the team are talented. They're big hitters and they love to play."

Johnson has a target range of 320 to 325 team points for his team. "That's two players with 75 and two with 85; we can do that," he said.